We skipped a week with the Sequential Bestseller List but are back with a vengeance to chronicle Watchmen mania. For the record, although Sequential uses Bookmanager figures, most Canadian news sources use numbers provided by the more-comprehensive BookNet. Both the Globe and Mail and National Post use these numbers. The most recent Post list has the Watchmen at #9, while the Globe doesn't list it at all. On the Chapters-Indigo list, Watchmen is currently at #15. On Amazon.ca, Watchmen ranks at #2, after Lawrence Hill's The Book of Negroes. On the BookManager list, Watchmen is #13 overall and #3 in paperback fiction. And now:

The Top 30 Graphic Novels in Canada, courtesy of BookManager. The full list by BookManager is available, with some work, here. The list is compiled by BookManager based on sales through over 400 independent bookstores. Sales through comic shops and larger retailers like Chapters-Indigo are not reflected in this list. For balance, you might want to try the Amazon.ca and Chapters-Indigo lists. This list has two parts, the top 30 overall and (at the bottom) the top 30 by Canadian creators. See here for last week's list.

Standard explanation: The pattern that emerges from looking at these lists over a period of weeks is that certain books, especially manga series, continuously jostle with each other, sliding up and down the longer list on the strength of a new volume or a spate of purchases for the kiddies. This week: Canada remains one nation, under Naruto, but Alan Moore has a few books on the list, and the Canadian-published, Queen of U.S. comics Lynda Barry returns to the list.

Canadian Content: You have to wade through an awful lot of translated Japanes manga, U.S. superhero titles, and collected editions of Sherman's Lagoon to come up with a list of 30 bestselling books created by Canadians. In total, BookManager lists over 4000 graphic novels, trades, and strip collections, the vast majority of which are not by Canadians.